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Watching Fermions Transition on Site

Optical lattices are a promising platform for simulating the many-body physics that occurs in solids. In lattices filled with cold bosonic atoms, “quantum microscopy” makes it possible to watch quantum phase transitions as they unravel. In a new Report in Science, the team of physicists in Prof. Markus Greiner's group bring a similar capability to lattices filled with fermions, which are trickier to cool but are a closer match to electrons in a solid. Tuning the interaction between the 6Li atoms allowed for the observation of transitions from a metallic phase to a band insulator and then to an interaction-dominated Mott insulator phase.